Common coding proposes a shared representation in the brain between perception, execution, and imagination of movement. This neural-level representation is considered to support a “direct activation” of action by perception/imagination of movement at the behavioral level. We examine how this two-tier model, where a representation at the neural level supports “direct activation” at the behavioral level, relates to the notion of situatedness—the real-time access and use of environment structure for cognition. Reviewing four leading environment-oriented approaches to cognition (ecological psychology, situated action, distributed cognition, and ecological rationality), we show that the access and use of the environment structures proposed by three of these approaches require a mechanism that supports both representations and direct access. We argue that the two-tier common coding model provides such an integrated mechanism, and, further, it extends and refines the notion of direct perception.
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